


Allergies

by allislaughter



Category: Bugsnax (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous Gender Journalist, Breakfast, Other, POV Third Person, Post-Game(s), Pre-Relationship, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:47:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29883399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allislaughter/pseuds/allislaughter
Summary: Floofty knows their body will take the longest to return to normal having been the only one to have fully transformed on Snaktooth Island. They know they will be stuck at home until then. What they did not expect was for the journalist to continue bringing them food and keeping them company in the meantime.
Relationships: Floofty Fizzlebean/The Journalist
Comments: 16
Kudos: 75





	Allergies

None of those from the Snaktooth Expedition, save for Gramble and the journalist, leave the island untransformed, which means most of them have to remain stuck at home until the snakification wears off. To their merit, Gramble and the journalist help the others by bringing them food and supplies and keeping them company until their self-imposed “quarantine” is over.

To that end, Floofty regrets asking the journalist to  _ completely _ transform their body. They by far will need to wait the longest, especially given how close to the end of their stay the journalist chose to assist them with their research.

It’s cumbersome to say the least, but Floofty makes the most of it, studying and making plans once they are able to leave to “interact” and become “friendlier” to their fellow Grumpus. In the meantime, they are grotesquely aware of how fitting it is for the journalist to continue that role from the island fetching food for them.

How fitting and... how  _ embarrassing. _

Floofty did not expect the journalist to glean into their preference for sweet food after their request for that thankfully-not-last meal. In the excitement of that final battle and subsequent escape, Floofty expected the journalist to have forgotten, but then the journalist arrived with goods in tow...

Floofty can’t complain, but that doesn’t lessen their utterly obvious misconception on the journalist’s intelligence and capabilities. Perhaps while blinded by parasitic temptation, Floofty was willing to ignore the journalist’s quick mind in capturing hostile or cowardly bugsnax, or how quickly the journalist could learn to use Snorpington’s inventions, or how calm under pressure the journalist was in the number of fights the others brought on with large and presumably ancient bugsnax, or during the destruction of the island in its frenzied state, or even during their request to help cut off their own head...

Floofty will have to talk to the journalist about  _ that _ later. At current, this retrospection is a mere distraction from the matter at hand.

The journalist is cooking food for  _ them _ in  _ their _ kitchen, and they aren’t sure what sort of small talk is suitable in this situation.

Perhaps, first, a question... Floofty clears their throat and draws the journalist’s attention. “You  _ are _ aware that I am capable of cooking for myself? I don’t require your assistance beyond bringing me ingredients.”

The journalist gives them a look of disbelief.

“...What?” they ask.

“Snorpy told me that if you  _ don’t _ have someone cooking for you, you’ll forget to eat or try to survive on instant food.”

“Oh, is that all?” Floofty scoffs. “You can tell  _ Snorpington _ that at least  _ I _ didn’t burn a bowl of  _ cereal _ making breakfast for my boyfriend.”

The journalist grins. “You have a boyfriend? This is news to me.”

“I do not,” Floofty frowns. “You know perfectly well what I meant.”

“Oh darn. And here I thought I’d have the perfect story to get me my job back.”

“...You lost your job?”

The journalist winces. “Oh, I guess you didn’t hear yet. Filbo and I presented the story we wrote and Clumby loved it. And then told me I was fired the moment I left for Snaktooth Island.”

“Hmm. Unfortunate.” Floofty shakes their head in disappointment. “They are certainly losing one of their better reporters.”

“Aww, when did  _ you _ get soft?”

Floofty glares at the journalist. “If you weren’t cooking for me, I’d throw you out.”

“Mm-hmm. Sure.” The journalist plates the last of the pancakes and slides it in front of Floofty. “But on the bright side, you’re almost back to normal, aren’t you?”

Floofty looks down at their body. “...More or less. I  _ will _ be needing a fitting for a prosthesis once I may leave my home once more, but other than that I have almost returned to how I was before leaving for the island.”

“Good thing Snorpy didn’t let you cut off your head then.”

Floofty frowns, but the journalist gives them a bottle of syrup for their pancakes and then sits down across from them. Ah, yes. The “keeping company” part of the visit. Floofty still isn’t sure how to approach this aspect of things, but they suppose they have to learn in order to progress with their studies after all.

“I have a question for you,” Floofty says.

“Turning the tables and interviewing me?”

“Do you ever choose  _ not _ to be sarcastic?”

“Is that your question?”

Floofty scoffs. “No. I want to ask... For all your time on the island, you seemed more preoccupied catching bugsnax for the rest of us and never partaking in any yourself. Why is that?”

“Oh!” The journalist shrugs. “I’m deathly allergic.”

_ “...What.” _

“Yeah, Filbo threw parties every time we got more people returning to town. And at the first one, he let me try a Strabby and I got sick instantly. I was stuck in the outhouse all night.”

“I did not need that last statement, thank you.” Floofty hums and taps their cheek. “But that is  _ fascinating. _ I wonder how common a bugsnax allergy is. If it’s a sort of evolutionary defense against falling prey to bugsnax parasitism, or if it’s a mutation in Grumpus DNA that only recently developed... I watched some of your attempts to gather bugsnax and noted how oddly hostile or frightened they seemed of  _ you _ specifically. Certainly they were a danger to all of us, and some would rather us chase them than willingly be eaten, but not to the extent they were with you. Perhaps they somehow sensed your inability to digest them and integrate them into your body?”

The journalist stares at them, chin in paw and blinking blankly. “Eat your breakfast, Floofty.”

Floofty frowns. “Are you honestly not interested in this phenomenon? If we could determine what makes  _ you _ allergic to bugsnax, perhaps we could utilize it to protect more of the population from the allure of bugsnax.”

“No one’s going to go back to Snaktooth Island,” the journalist says. “Filbo and I made sure of that with the story we wrote.”

“Are you really so foolish as to think that would stop others—?”

“It would mean we’d have to tell people about bugsnax,” the journalist reminds. “And you agreed with the rest of us that no one should know about that for their own safety.”

Floofty hums and adjust their glasses. “Perhaps I was hasty in that decision...”

“You want to tell people you severed your own leg after you had me turn it into strawberries?”

“...Point made and taken.” 

Floofty resigns to eating their pancakes while the journalist sits silently, albeit shifting in discomfort every so often. Finally, the journalist leans forward.

“Is that weird?” the journalist asks. “That I was allergic to them? Do you really think the fact they made me sick is what made them attack me as much as they did?”

Floofty swallows their bite of food and motions around with their fork. “It’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility. There’s so much about bugsnax we still don’t know, even with Elizabert’s testimony. For instance, if Grumpuses turn into snax after a complete transformation, and if the goal of bugsnax is to completely take over a host, then why are there so many skeletons on Snaktooth Island? Are these Grumpuses who, like you, could not stomach snax and so perished in other ways, leaving remains behind? And if bugsnax truly want to be eaten, then why do so many resist capture? Is it a play on Grumpus desire to yearn for what they cannot have and make them desire bugsnax more? There are so many questions we are leaving behind with that island that may never be answered.”

“Hmm...” The journalist seems to regard Floofty’s words pensively, falling silent and staring at the table with a furrowed brow.

Floofty finishes their last bite of pancake and sets aside their fork, and they watch the journalist. The silence is unsettling, the serious look on the journalist’s face much different from the eye rolling or confusion or grins they’re used to. The closest they’ve seen this expression before was when the journalist came just in time to defend them and Shelda from certain death... But even that was more a look of determination and not one like  _ this. _

They almost feel concerned that there’s something, for lack of better word,  _ unsavory _ stewing in the journalist’s mind.

They should put a stop to that.

“For what it’s worth,” Floofty says. “Perhaps it’s for the better that you  _ are _ allergic. Certainly if you had been compelled to eat bugsnax like the rest of us, none of us would have survived that island.”

The journalist looks up at that. “Gramble didn’t eat them either...”

“Gramble did not have the backbone to dare hurt them,” Floofty reminds. “You had the proclivity to do what you needed to in order to help us. In that sense I’m... grateful... I’m grateful that you continue to help me now when you have no need to or reason to. Even beyond merely saving my life, I have you to thank for my new respect for others and willingness to improve, not just mentally but socially as well. You are more intelligent than I initially gave your credit for, so I’m certain you know that if you had any inclination to return to that forsaken island, I would be sure to—” They backtrack. “I mean,  _ all of us _ would be sure to miss you.”

“Oh, no way,” the journalist says. “That’s the last thing I ever want to do.”

Floofty frowns. “Then, out of curiosity, what do you seem so preoccupied with at current?”

“...You’d think it’s silly.”

“I wouldn’t doubt that,” Floofty answers. “But, all the same, you have piqued my interest. I request that you tell me regardless of how frivolous it is.”

“It’s just...” The journalist smiles in a nervous fashion. “That Strabby didn’t even taste  _ good.” _

Floofty cracks a grin despite themself and they snort and laugh in an undignified way. The journalist smiles more genuinely and Floofty’s able to calm themself down enough to speak.  _ “You _ have an aptitude for the unexpected.”

“Well, thanks,” the journalist laughs. “I never heard you laugh like that before.”

“Don’t expect to hear it again so soon. I’m allergic to laughter.”

“No you’re not.”

“Maybe so, but you will still find it difficult to make me laugh a second time.”

“I’ll consider that a challenge.”

Floofty tilts their head. “Is that so?”

“Yeah!” The journalist grins at them. “I already fed you. So now my new quest is to make you laugh again.”

Floofty stares and then drops their face into their paw. “Of course it is...”

Floofty is grotesquely aware of how embarrassing this “quest” will be...

...But they can’t say it’s unwelcome.


End file.
